On How the Four Inauspicious Gods Can Form a Structure (Si Xiong Shen Neng Cheng Ge)

The Mirror of the Previous Chapter

Killings, wounding, owl and blade are called inauspicious, and this chapter is the mirror of the last: well handled, each of them can be the very thing that makes the structure work. Killings aid a light seal, the wounding officer dissolves robbers for wealth, the owl is used to preserve killings when the food god is too strong, and the blade lifts the pressure of seven killings on a weak body. Shen closes with an image from statecraft: spears and halberds are ugly tools, but they put down rebellion.